I’m writing this because it’s my third time not being able to participate in something due to such waiver and I refuse to let operators get away with negligence (... and or breach of statutory duty, blah, blah)!
Signing a “Waiver of Liability” seems to be a condition for participation in many sporting and recreational activities, whether kids’ or grown-ups’.
AND it’s usually shown to you AFTER you paid for the activity!
I understand that some activities have some risks associated with them, and I am willing to accept responsibility for some things that may go wrong, but IF anything bad does happen, it should NOT be due to operators’ “negligence or breach of statutory duty”.
If the operator is negligent or does not do its statutory duty to keep me (or mine) safe, they should be responsible!
They may say: “Don’t worry, we’ve been here so long and nothing bad happened!”
To this I’ll say: “Then you shouldn’t mind removing that part from your waiver”
Do they think preserving their business is more important than peoples’ limbs or lives?
I propose to you: do not participate in any activities if they have to sign a waiver that waives operators’ liability for “negligence or breach of statutory duty” (or any such things).
It may be inconvenient for a while but hopefully they’ll wake up and change their waivers.
I would even hope that governments and/or legal systems would CLEARLY make such waivers unenforceable at federal level, but it seems that local jurisdictions can just make their own mind, based on the fact that nobody forces you to participate in the activity if you don’t want to sign the waiver.What do you think?
Am I missing anything?